About Tad Hargrave

Early on in running Marketing for Hippies, Tad realized that the central issue at the root of 95% of his clients problems was that they didn’t have a clear niche. Over the next decade of workshops and one on one work, this became more and more clear. And so, after years of trial and error, he created NichingSpiral.com as a resource to support his clients and other conscious entrepreneur types in getting this issue sorted out.

“The first ebook I ever created was about niching. I didn’t want to create it, but I truly couldn’t find anything out there that made sense to me. And back then, I had very few colleagues to compare notes with.

Over the years things have truly developed, and now I find myself with the great pleasure of enjoying many colleagues. And, the great confirmation of having them all echo the sentiment that figuring out one’s niche matters. So much. In most of my colleagues’ business related courses – niching is the first issue addressed, above all others.

And yet, it felt as though something were missing. Or a bit off track.

What was even more abundantly clear was that they didn’t really know what a niche was, what a good niche looked like or how to get one. I also realized that neither myself nor most of his colleagues knew a lot about how to help people to figure theirs out.

I thought to myself, “There’s got to be a better way to do this.”

I remember leading one of my early workshops in Seattle, and asking people to pick a niche for their business. In my mind, it made sense. You need a niche to successfully market so . . . just pick one. I was, of course, greeted by many a deer-in-the-headlights look, and some incredible resistance.

I remember attending a colleague’s workshop where they were encouraging people to just “pick one.” One lady stood up to share hers, quite excited by what she’d come up with. She got on the microphone and shared it, only to have him say, “Nope! Not specific enough!” She sat down, totally deflated and embarrassed. She didn’t say another word the rest of that workshop.

In the early days, I would spend an hour of my weekend workshops on this idea of niching. And then a full morning. And then a full day. Then, one weekend, we spent two days on niching. Finally, I created a full six week program which I ran three times. And it still wasn’t enough.

All of this left me with that familiar feeling that “There’s got to be a better way to do this.”

And I began to wonder if the whole way we were approaching helping people find their niche itself might actually be wrong. What if the problem was not that people were inherently resistant to it or needed to “get over their fears about niching,” but that the way we were teaching it and the processes we were using was actually creating that very resistance.

Case in point: the original title of work on niching was going to be “Cracking the Niching Code.” But it didn’t feel right. It felt too . . . final. Too simple. A false promise.

But it also left me with the question: “Why is it so hard to figure out your niche?”

If you had your niche sorted, you know that the rest of your marketing would be so much easier.

You’ve seen people with clear niches. You get why it matters. And yet . . . you’re stuck. And you don’t know why. Maybe you even think, “Am I ever going to figure this out?”

You’ve fought this niching thing for a while but you’re finally realizing that you need to deal with it.

But even the thought of that brings up so many questions for you:

“What if I choose the wrong niche?” “What if I change my mind?” “What if I put it out there and no one responds?” “What if I have multiple niches?” “What if I get bored with the niche and want more variety?”

If you could just figure this out.

But so far, despite your best efforts and intentions, it’s eluded you. The whole niching question feels so foggy to you.

You may have sat there with a hot cup of coffee, a blank piece of paper on your lap and a pen held loosely in your hand and tried to figure this out on your own – hoping inspiration might strike, only to find yourself hitting dead end after dead end.

You may have finally done the wise thing and reached out for help, trying out different approaches to figuring out your niche.

My guess is that it has left you with a general sense that there’s got to be a better way to do this.

You love the “idea” of having a niche. But, right now, you can’t imagine what that would look like or how it could happen without it feeling incredibly constraining or just . . . “off” in some way. Or even if you’re totally open to it, you can’t imagine what it will be.

You’re not alone. And you’re not crazy.

Most of the entrepreneurs I run into are somewhere in this struggle. It’s rare to find someone who’s got it figured out.

Ever since I began helping people with their marketing, it became apparent how important this idea of figuring out one’s niche was.

This is an issue that isn’t urgent, but it is important. And so it’s easy to ignore in favour of things which are urgent and important (genuine crises that must be handled) and those things which are urgent but not important (drama).”